Sharia alert from Saudi Arabia. If they hadn’t confessed — the circumstances of which I do not know, but probably the evidence was fairly conclusive — they would have walked, and the victims would never have been able to establish their guilt in the absence of male witnesses. From AP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
Two men were beheaded in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, yesterday after being convicted of kidnapping and raping a woman, the Interior Ministry said.
The men, a Saudi and a Yemeni, were executed in a public square after confessing to their crimes, the ministry said in a statement.
The two men forced the victim into their car and sexually assaulted her before stealing her mobile phone and money and letter her go, the statement said. It was unclear when the crimes were committed.
The executions took the number of people beheaded in Saudi Arabia this year to at least 62. Last year, 35 people were executed in the kingdom and 52 in the year 2003.